THE Queen officially named the Royal Navy's biggest ever ship this morning – after herself.

Her Majesty did away with the traditional champagne and instead smashed a bottle of Islay malt whisky against the HMS Queen Elizabeth – a naval tradition dating back thousands of years.

Accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh, she visited the Rosyth Dockyard in Fife, where the 65,000-tonne aircraft carrier has been assembled and fitted out.

Also in attendance were Labour leader Ed Miliband and First Minister Alex Salmond, along with his 92-year-old Second World War naval veteran father Robert.

Mr Miliband said: "Today we celebrate the skills and talents of the men and women who worked on the HMS Queen Elizabeth.

"This is the biggest warship ever built in the United Kingdom. Assembled here in Scotland, but built in six yards around the United Kingdom.

"From Glasgow to Birkenhead, Fife to Portsmouth, this contract has provided work to thousands of people across the country and made the best use of the skills and talents of the people who work in our yards.

"It is a visible reminder of what we can achieve when we work together across the United Kingdom.

"Shipbuilding has been at the centre of many communities across Scotland for hundreds of years, and today we pay tribute to the workers on the Clyde and at Rosyth who have made this project a reality.

A CGI image of the the HMS Queen Elizabeth [PA]

They are effectively a floating military city that can deploy aircraft, that can act as a disaster relief centre

Ian Booth, from the Aircraft Carrier Alliance

"As part of the United Kingdom, I'm confident that shipbuilding in Scotland will have a positive future and continue to thrive."

The aircraft carrier is now structurally complete and ready to be floated out of her dock for the first time shortly after the official naming ceremony.

It is the second HMS Queen Elizabeth – the first was completed a century ago – and has been named as a continuation of this historic Royal Navy name and a tribute to the Queen.

The vessel will have have 679 permanent crew and capacity for 1,600 crew members when fully operational.

The warship, which has a length equivalent to 28 London buses or three times the length of Buckingham Palace, was described as a "floating military city".

Ian Booth, from the Aircraft Carrier Alliance, was responsible for overseeing the £6.2billion project.

Earlier today, he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "We now have very flexible warships which have been designed to meet the UK's military maritime needs for the next 50 years. They are really flexible ships with massive capability built into them.

Workers walk in front of the huge vessel [REUTERS]

"They are effectively a floating military city that can deploy aircraft, that can act as a disaster relief centre. They have their own hospital with operating theatres. They can support land forces, all sorts of military interventions.

"I'm very proud today.

"This is the culmination of a great amount of work to build this magnificent warship. Ten thousand people have worked on it across the UK, 1,000 youngsters have begun their careers on this programme.

"We are really feeling immensely proud to name the ship today and to have the Queen here to do that."

The Queen Elizabeth's captain, Commodore Jerry Kyd, said: "We're naming her today and we're sailing her probably in the back of the summer 2016 for trials.

"We've got a very busy programme of getting aircraft on her as soon as we can, probably rotary aircraft to begin with, and the first flight trials for the new Lightning aircraft, the new joint strike fighter, will be in 2018. So it will be a fairly rapid build-up.

"This is an enormous ship, a fantastic capability. We've got a good plan to bring it into service as soon as we can and get it onto the world's oceans."